Married to the Viscount (2 page)

Nat’s face lit up. “Capital, old fellow, capital! I knew you’d come through for me.” Done with his business, Nat attacked his own cider. While he drank, he watched his brother through narrowed eyes. “So you find Miss Mercer beautiful?”

The buzzing in Spencer’s head formed the words, “‘She walks in beauty like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies.’”

“My God, now you’re quoting poetry.”

Had he said that aloud? Bloody hell. Spencer brandished his empty mug at his brother. “I always quote verse when I’m foxed.”

“You must be very foxed to quote that idiot Byron. Or very impressed by Miss Mercer’s looks.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” And exactly when had he started slurring his words?

Nat fiddled with his mug. “Some men might find her coloring too dark.”

“Some men are idiots.” Spencer lifted his mug, remembered it was empty, and frowned.

With a chuckle, Nat pushed his own over. “I’m just saying I’m surprised that her being half Indian hasn’t put off the great Ravenswood.”

“Stop calling me that.” Accepting his brother’s full mug, Spencer ignored Nat’s intent stare. “Besides, half Indian or no, she’s of good stock. Her father’s family is prominent in Philadelphia, and her mother’s father was chief of his tribe. The Seneca, I believe.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“She told me herself.”

“Ah, yes. During all those conversations. And is that
all
you did? Talk?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” A burst of raucous laughter from a nearby table made Spencer’s head pound, and he rubbed his suddenly throbbing temples.

“Yes, you do. You lust after the woman—admit it. You get that look in your eyes whenever she enters a room, as if you’d like nothing more than to sheathe your sword in her scabbard.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.” And devil take the scoundrel for noticing so much.

Nat watched him closely. “Considering her background and the likelihood that she’ll never marry, perhaps you should coax her into becoming your mistress.”

Spencer managed a laugh. “That determined American optimism of hers would drive me mad inside a month.” He stared down into the dregs of his cider, only to see Abby Mercer as his mistress. All that cheerful eagerness focused on pleasing him and wanting him and writhing about with him naked in his bed…

Ridiculous thought. Gently bred women did not agree to be mistresses. Anyway, he was done with having a mistress. Being a woman’s protector was too much a parody of the marriage he couldn’t have. Better to have the occasional random liaison when he had the time for it. Which wasn’t often these days.

“So I suppose marrying her is out of the question,” Nat said smoothly.

“Absolutely.”

“She seemed well-bred to me, but I suppose she’s not refined enough for you.”

“Got nothing to do with it. Even if I wanted, I couldn’t marry her.”

“Because you have your eye on somebody else?” his brother probed.

“Certainly not.” Spencer lowered his voice. His head thundered when he spoke too loudly. “Can’t marry her, can’t marry anyone.”

“Of course you can. You have to marry someone. And soon, too. You’re already thirty-seven. You ought to settle down with a wife.”

“Can’t.” Damned nuisance to have his words coming out all fuzzy. “No marriage for me.” He caught Nat’s scowl and added, “That ought to make you happy—you or your son will inherit it all.”

“I don’t want to inherit it all.” Nat sounded panicked. “Evelina and I will be perfectly content with whatever you settle on us, so don’t think you’ll get out of siring an heir. I’ve no desire to gain the title and be responsible for tenants and houses and all that rot. I ran a ship aground while I was in the navy—what do you think I’d do to an estate?”

“But you can run a business?”

“Own it, not run it. I told you.” Nat scowled. “All right, so perhaps I just don’t want to run an estate. It doesn’t interest me.”

“Didn’t interest me, either. But a man does his duty. Yours will be siring an heir.”

“By God, you’re serious. You really don’t intend to marry.”

Spencer nodded, feeling rather wobbly. “Plan to be a bachelor till I die.”

“Why? It’s got nothing to do with Dora, I hope. Just because Father and our stepmother made a hash of their marriage is no reason to think you will.”

There was more to it than that, but Spencer dared not explain. Instead he gazed morosely into the glazed red hollow of his empty mug. Nat called for more cider, and Spencer lifted his reeling head. “Shouldn’t have any more, you know. I’m foxed.”

“Not foxed enough.” Nat flashed him a grim smile. “Let
me enjoy the novelty of my perfect brother’s exhibiting the same weaknesses we mere mortals possess.”

“Not perfect,” Spencer muttered. “Not a’tall. That’s the trouble, you see.”

“No, I don’t see.” Two mugs magically appeared, and Nat shoved both at Spencer. “Perhaps it’s time you explain it to me.”

Chapter 1

Even the finest butler may blunder when announcing a surprise guest, but he should use the occasion to learn the correct styling. One never knows when a surprise guest may become important in his employer’s household.

Suggestions for the Stoic Servant,
by the Butler to a Very Important Gentleman

London
April 15, 1822

T
he bride-to-be was here. The groom-to-be was two hours late. As betrothal dinners went, this one qualified for fiasco of the season.

Spencer, reluctant host of the fiasco, surveyed the immaculately appointed dining table in his London town house and sighed. How soon could he call an end to this painful ordeal and retreat to his study and his cognac? Probably not for at least another hour. Anything less would rouse suspicion among his twenty-six guests.

Thanks to his quick thinking and talent for lying, they didn’t even know the dinner was a fiasco. And until he found out why Nat had disappeared, he had no intention of letting them in on the secret.

He glanced over at Lady Evelina, the bride-to-be. Thank God she’d apparently accepted his far-fetched tale. Like a china doll, she perched on her chair in cultivated perfection,
blond ringlets framing her flawless brow, her cheeks pink but not rouged, and her gown the ideal hue for her porcelain skin. Only her sparkling eyes hinted at the sweet-natured girl Nat and Spencer had teased while she was growing up.

Catching his eye, Evelina dabbed daintily at her cupid-bow lips with a damask napkin. “I do hope they don’t detain poor Nathaniel at the police offices all night. Did his note say how long it might be?”

That damned fictitious note. “No, but they’ll probably keep him awhile,” Spencer lied with all the practiced ease of a former spymaster. “He’ll have to give testimony against the ruffian he caught snatching that woman’s reticule.”

“It was so brave of him to run off after the villain all alone,” she said. “And then to insist on carrying that man to the police himself—how noble of him!”

“Yes, Nat is nothing if not noble.” That lie came harder in the face of young Evelina’s starry-eyed loyalty.

Not that Spencer had any other choice. Engaging in a manly pursuit of justice was an acceptable excuse for not attending one’s betrothal dinner; abandoning one’s bride-to-be was not. Until Spencer knew the reason for Nat’s apparent defection, he had to keep lying. Otherwise, Evelina and her widowed mother, Lady Tyndale, would suffer public humiliation. Which Spencer refused to allow.

Where the hell was he? When Spencer had last seen Nat an hour before dinner, his brother hadn’t mentioned any plans to dash out. And although Spencer’s butler McFee had seen Nat receive a message shortly after that, no one had seen the man leave. But no one could find him, either, not in the house or at any of his favorite London haunts.

Nat had simply vanished, and it looked deliberate. After all, how much trouble could one man get into in only a few hours?

Spencer sighed. Nat had acted strangely ever since his return from America a month ago—he was inordinately inter
ested in the mail, came and went at all hours, had mysterious meetings, and in general acted like a man still sowing wild oats instead of preparing to marry.

Now this. For God’s sake, where was he?

“Well, I for one am surprised Nathaniel even had the presence of mind to send a note at all,” Evelina’s mother commented. “But the man is always so considerate.”

“And noble, too,” the woman sitting next to her added with a hint of sarcasm. “Let’s not forget ‘noble.’”

Wonderful. Now Lady Brumley was putting her nose in it. Why in hell had Evelina’s mother invited a woman popularly known as the Galleon of Gossip? He should have paid closer attention to the guest list.

But with England’s chaotic political situation occupying him, he’d had no time to plan the betrothal dinner Lady Tyndale had expected him to host. So he’d unwisely given that to her, his designated hostess for the evening. Somehow the intimate little affair he’d suggested had exploded into this assembly of London society’s most prestigious—and chatty—members. That’s what he got for trusting a woman with the intelligence of a pea.

And there was still a betrothal ball to get through two nights from now. Fortunately, Lady Tyndale was hosting that at her home. Spencer shuddered to think what sort of production it would be. She’d probably invited half the
ton
to her ball.

If there was a ball. Given Nat’s disappearance tonight, that was no longer certain.

He scowled. He wanted to see Nat settled, damn it. Twenty-nine was a good age for marrying, and twenty-year-old Evelina was perfect for him. Insane as it seemed, she’d apparently been in love with the idiot from girlhood, which was all a man could ask for.

“That note from your brother,” Lady Brumley commented.
“Might we see it for ourselves, Ravenswood? I shall have to write about the event for the paper, and I want all the details of Mr. Law’s noble act.”

What the nosy woman wanted was to uncover scandal. Clearly she hadn’t believed his tale. Just what he needed—the shrewd Lady Brumley voicing her suspicions in that infamous column of hers.

“I thought you had your own sources.” Spencer sipped his claret with a carefully cultivated air of boredom. “Or have you grown tired of checking your facts?”

The woman answered his sarcasm in kind. “I suspect that if I wait until tomorrow for that, I’ll hear only the official story. Since the London magistrates report directly to you at the Home Office, I don’t imagine they’ll tell me anything more than you’ll allow.”

“True.” He set down his glass. “But I’ve already told you all there is to tell.”

Spencer cast a surreptitious glance at the clock and barely suppressed his groan. Two hours and thirteen minutes. Perhaps this
was
something other than mere defection. Could Nat have landed in trouble? But how? And with whom?

“I should still like to see the note—” Lady Brumley began.

“You know, my lord,” Evelina broke in, “Nathaniel told me and Mama all about his recent visit to America, but we haven’t heard a word from
you
about it.”

Spencer regarded the girl with surprise. The polite Evelina rarely interrupted anyone, much less a woman of Lady Brumley’s standing. Perhaps she wasn’t as oblivious to the situation as he’d thought.

When everyone else turned their attention to her, Evelina flushed, but kept her eyes on Spencer. “I know you didn’t spend as much time there as Nathaniel, but how did you like it? He seemed to enjoy it quite a lot. He spoke highly of the Mercers and was very impressed with Dr. Mercer’s Medici
nal Mead.” She smiled at her listeners. “That’s the doctor’s tonic for indigestion and other ailments. Dr. Mercer’s company produces it.”

“Never heard of it,” Lady Brumley put in. “And you can be sure I know all the tonics for indigestion.”

“It sells only in America right now, my lady.” Evelina served herself asparagus with shaky hands. “But Nathaniel thinks it could sell quite well here. So in exchange for part ownership in the company, Nathaniel is promoting the tonic in England.”

Spencer hadn’t known what Nat was planning. What else had his brother not told him?

Lady Brumley shot Spencer a reproachful look. “Have you gone mad, my lord? Why would you allow your brother to pursue some wild scheme—”

“But it’s not,” Evelina put in hastily. “Nathaniel believes this Mercer fellow’s enterprise is a worthy one. His lordship does, too—he’s agreed to invest in it himself.”

“Really, Ravenswood?” Lady Brumley asked. “You’re encouraging this idiocy?”

“I’m always eager for a good investment.” But Nat hadn’t actually asked him for any money yet, and Spencer only half remembered the drunken night when he’d agreed to invest. “In the brief time I had to observe Mercer’s company, it seemed sound.”

“Nathaniel is determined to make a go of it,” Evelina said. “He has his own stake in the firm, you see.”

Yes. Nat had apparently done the impossible, because upon his return to England he’d assured Spencer that old Josiah had relented and made him a partner.

“Of course,” Evelina went on, “he does have to share the company with the physician’s daughter. But that’s all right, since Miss Mercer is the one who concocts all the medicines. So he needs her anyway.”

Abigail Mercer. Damn, Spencer might have forgotten the
American woman for a few hours, but he’d needed only a mention of her to summon Miss Mercer’s image anew—her bright flash of a smile, teasing green eyes, sun-kissed skin. Why couldn’t he suppress that picture? He’d known her only two weeks, yet she’d plagued his thoughts for months since.

“So Nat…er…told you about Miss Mercer?” Spencer ate a forkful of squab pie. What could Nat possibly have said that wouldn’t have made Evelina jealous?

“Oh, yes,” Evelina answered. “Poor thing, to lose her mother so young, then have to face losing her father, too. And still unmarried at twenty-six! She’s unlikely to find a husband even after her father dies. Nathaniel says she’s dark and plain as a crow.”

Spencer nearly choked. When had Nat become as adept at lying as his older brother? “I believe that Miss Mercer’s spinsterhood wasn’t the result so much of her looks as of her situation.”